COMMEMORATIVE EVENT IN HONOUR OF PEACE HELD

MRKOPALJ, Feb 20 (Hina) - A commemorative meeting, organised under the auspices of the Croatian government, was held in Mrkopalj on Friday evening in tribute to partisans who died in the Matic polje field (a wider Delnice area in western Croatia) 60 years ago.#L# Addressing Friday evening's commemoration, which was held as part of the 42nd annual Commemorative Event In Honour to Peace, the minister of European integration, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic commented on the situation in which two parallel commemorations were held today. Earlier in the day the Croatian Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and its local branch, under the auspices of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, held a commemorative event under the name 'the Commemoration In Tribute To the 26 Frozen Partisans'. Grabar Kitarovic said it was irrelevant what kind of the name would be given to the commemoration, but what was important was to pay tribute to all who fought for Croatia. On Friday afternoon, Ivan Fumic, the leader of the above-mentioned association, said that the event could be named only 'the Commemoration In Tribute To the 26 Frozen Partisans', and condemned the situation in which two commemorations were organised. 'The Commemoration In Tribute To the 26 Frozen Partisans' was organised for the first time in 1962 in tribute to 26 partisans who had been frozen to death in a blizzard in Matic polje in the night between 19 and 20 February in 1944 during a march of their unit. This annual event was renamed as the Commemorative Event in Honour of Peace ('Memorijal mira') in 1992. The Croatian Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters, being dissatisfied with the changing of the name, continued to hold every year the commemorative event under the name 'the Commemoration In Tribute To the 26 Frozen Partisans'. This year it happened that the two parallel events took place on the same day, the first one in Delnice and the second in Mrkopalj. (Hina) ms